Category Archives: History and Culture

I recently had the opportunity to help lead a Penn course on sustainability and the food-water-energy nexus, with an emphasis on food waste. The bulk of the course consisted of a week-long trip to Italy. Why Italy? First, why ever not? Second, course instructor Steve Finn wanted to explore food waste through the lens of [...]

Last month, Michigan State University history professor, Helen Veit, wrote a killer piece for The Atlantic on leftovers. While its title—“An Economic History of Leftovers”—won’t send pulses racing, its contents will. In fact, the piece should be required reading for anyone with a refrigerator. Yes, that means you. As a Tupperware-toting leftover lover, I just had to [...]

Sad news, folks: every Thanksgiving, Americans squander 400 Statues of Liberty worth of turkey, by weight. That’s a lot of forsaken fowl—more than 200 million pounds—and a sign of how wasteful we’ve become. It’s time we stop this Turkey Day tomfoolery. First, throwing away 35 percent of our turkey is oh-so-ungrateful. It undermines the spirit [...]

Seldom do you see Ramadan and hogs in the same sentence, but they’ve both been in the ‘food waste news’ recently. On the former, here’s a thought-provoking editorial lamenting the increased food waste during Ramadan in the United Arab Emirates. A common cooking tactic during the holy month of daylight fasting is to overprepare to [...]

While we’re celebrating declaring independence from the British Crown, it’s worth remembering to declare your independence from food waste. How does one do that? Here’s one way: Whether you’re planning a cookout, a picnic or a regular old meal, plan ahead! Think about how many people will be eating and the amount folks are likely to [...]

File under ‘rising tide of food waste coverage:’ National Geographic ran this neat piece on how cities manage to compost their abundant food waste. — — Three Hawaiian universities have signed on to fight food waste. Hawaiian food waste takes on a heightened importance, as that food has probably been imported and it’ll likely be exported, [...]

It’s never a bad thing when the world’s most populous country turns its gaze to food waste. And China is doing just that, thanks to Xi Jinping, the new Communist Party chief and the presumed next President. Xi prompted this newfound attention with a few words in response to an article on China’s rampant food waste. As [...]

Ashley Koff recently asked on Twitter when I was going to post some simple waste-saving tips for the holidays. Good question, Ashley! Here goes: While I already covered similar ground in a longer Thanksgiving post, here’s a simplified version: 1. Get a firm head count. Knowing how many people you’ll be hosting helps the planning. 2. [...]

Our friend Kirsten Bourne, marketing director for San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Market, was at a British-themed party recently and came across the tome to the right. She kindly sent me a passage from these instructions for US personnel headed to Britain during World War II. As you can see in the text below, the manual has [...]

This Thanksgiving, America will throw away more than 400 Statue of Liberty’s worth of turkey (by weight). Based on estimates, we’ll discard 203 million pounds of turkey, at a cost of $282 million. That’s fowl. — Thanksgiving is about being thankful for and celebrating abundance. Yet these days, we tend to do that by serving an [...]